Winter training and track questions...

First.... I'm looking to get a winter training plan as I'm 3 weeks away from my last race (not on varsity) and not sure what to do after that. Does anyone know where I can find one? We don't have an indoor track season where I am so we are largely left on our own to train. Our coach gives some general guides but nothing specific to the runner.

Second.... I really don't care about the upcoming track season but want to focus my attention on making varsity the 2020 XC season. How does this change my training and track season? Obviously, I'm going to focus on the 1600 and 3200 but is there anything else to be aware of or to do? I think it will be tough to put together good training for XC if I am racing twice a week. Should I ask to do more doubles to turn the meets into workouts?

The first thing I can recommend is to not give up on this track season yet, there's still a good amount of time to drop your 32 and 16 times to where you want them to be at. I was in a similar position to you last year where I wasn't happy with my XC performance at all. To train for track season, I implemented a 6 week base phase which ran from mid-November through December which consisted of bumping mileage up to 40 miles/week mostly through easy runs but also through fartleks and hill workouts. This really helps going into track season because having a good aerobic base is the cornerstone of producing good times on the track (in my opinion, at least). I also had a similar meet schedule where we had league meets on Wednesdays and invitationals on Saturdays. What I did was on those league meet days (not really important meets), I would run 4-5 miles beforehand to get some mileage in, but then I would also run 3-4 events (800, 1600, 3200, and 4x4). However, don't go all out, but instead I would try and negative split my 800s in the 1600 or run the 3200 like a fartlek (run a hard 400, run a "relaxed" 400). All this helped me convert my freshman year mile time of 4:56 to a 4:34 by the end of the season and granted me a spot on the varsity team. This newly found work ethic helped carry me through summer training and so far I've had a great XC season as well.

Anyway, TL;DR: don't give up on track, base phase in the pre-season, and turn those low-level meets into a workout with mileage before.

Good luck with the rest of your XC season.

Winter training and track questions...

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